Theresa Smith – Pathway Communications

Must Read: Mark Meeker’s 2014 Internet Trends

Theresa Smith — Wed, 28 May 2014 18:33:20 +0000

KPCB Internet trends 2014 from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Is Law School Worth the Cost?

Theresa Smith — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 18:05:28 +0000

Back in September I hosted a panel discussion on #CollegeChat via Twitter whether Law School was worth the cost. It continues to be a hot topic in higher education amdist declining law school applications, rising tuition and debt for graduates, and unstable job prospects. Below is WorldWideLearn’s infographic “Law School 2.0: How law schools and law careers are changing”.

What You Need to Know About Google’s Latest Changes

Theresa Smith — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 14:55:07 +0000

Erica Moss is the author of this post and is the community manager for Georgetown University’s online masters in nursing program, offering one of the nation’s leading nurse educator programs. She enjoys blogging, TV, pop culture and tweeting @ericajmoss

Businesses that count on their website to attract customers rise and fall on the strength of their Google ranking. Google’s recent updates to its search algorithms, the so-called Panda and Penguin changes, have had a measurable impact on the ranking of thousands of websites. Whether you have a business website or are thinking of starting one, you need to factor in the “Google Zoo” when developing your online strategy.

According to SEOmoz, Google developers tweak their search algorithms about 500 times per year in order to thwart spammers and ensure the quality of their search results. Most of the Google search engine changes are small, but a couple of recent updates sent traffic levels for some legitimate websites into a nosedive. No one who wants to grow their business with an online presence can afford to ignore the so-called Panda and Penguin changes. Here’s what you should know:

Panda

Released in February 2011, the Panda change penalized websites with poorly written or duplicate content. It lowered the ranking of spammy websites with high ad-to-content ratios and gave higher ranking to sites with unique, relevant and high-quality content.

Penguin

Rolled out in April 2012, this change tightened the Google search algorithm’s ability to filter out web spam techniques, like content spinning, keyword stuffing and unnatural linking. Many sites that went overboard in their use of keywords were hit by the Penguin change.

In the months following the Panda and Penguin changes, SEO experts have determined the new best practices for search engine ranking. Google also provides advice and support in the form of its Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (available on the Google Webmaster Tools page). A few pointers include:

Add compelling and useful content to your website in the form of articles, blog posts, forums, social media services and other means. Remove content that’s too generic or duplicated too often elsewhere.
Attract repeat visitors with fresh, easy-to-read content that’s free from spelling and grammatical errors. Make sure your site is well organized so visitors can quickly navigate to the information they need.
Incorporate keywords naturally into your content. They should not interrupt the flow of your website’s content or appear to be inserted after the content was written.
Avoid unnatural anchor text. The text should tell the user something about the external page that’s being linked to from your website.
Watch your ad-to-content ratio. First and foremost, provide your visitors with relevant content instead of hitting them over the head with advertising.

Other Considerations

In addition to considering Panda and Penguin when constructing and updating a website, it’s important to pay attention to how a website is promoted. Organic links that occur naturally when people discover your content and link to it are the best. This takes time, and Google understands that businesses need website promotion to speed up discovery of their content. Blog posts, press releases, newsletters and RSS feeds are Google-approved promotion techniques. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter can also be used for promotion, provided the social updates aren’t too frequent. Marketing through article directories like Ezinearticles, Squidoo and HubPages, once a successful strategy for improving search engine ranking, now can hurt more than help a website.

Expert Panel to Discuss Whether Law School Is Worth the Cost on #CollegeChat September 18th

Theresa Smith — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:23:19 +0000

Gabrielle Lyse Brown, director of Diversity Pipeline Initiatives for the New York City Bar, and Akil Bello, owner of Bell Curves, will lead law school discussion on #CollegeChat September 18, 2012 at 9 p.m. Eastern

Amidst widespread news over the last year of unemployed and under employed law school graduates, Gabrielle Lyse Brown, director Diversity Pipeline Initiatives for the New York City Bar, and Akil Bello, owner of Bell Curves – an educational services and test preparation company, will discuss whether Law School is worth the cost on #CollegeChat September 18, 2012 at 9 p.m. Eastern.

During #CollegeChat, Brown http://twitter.com/NYCBarDiversity and Bello, http://twitter.com/akilbello , will discuss with attendees factors prospective law school students should consider before finalizing their plans to attend law school including:

Is attending Law School amidst all the negative news regarding employment a wise choice?
How should students weigh the potential benefits of law school against the cost of law school?
How can students investigate the success of Law Schools in placing graduates in full time law careers?
How much debt should law school students consider taking on?
How should students weigh which Law School to enroll in?
What’s the biggest mistake students make when considering what school to attend?
Should students only consider top ranked Law Schools? What are important factors to consider?

Gabrielle Lyse Brown is the director of Diversity Pipeline Initiatives for the New York City Bar, where she leads the Association’s efforts to enhance diversity in the legal profession through developmental support for high school, college and law students of color who want to pursue a legal career. In this role, she creates, develops, and administers comprehensive programming that provides inner-city students with academic support and enrichment, professional and substantive skill development, networking/mentoring opportunities and exposure to the legal profession. She is a member of Board of Directors of Practicing Attorneys for Law Students, Inc. (PALS) and the Bronx School of Law and Finance Advisory Board.

Akil Bello is an expert in test preparation and is the owner of Educational Development for Bell Curves. Bello oversees all aspects of the development of programs and materials, as well as the training of teachers. He has worked as a teacher trainer and materials developer at three different test prep companies, bringing his unique humor and intelligence to every endeavor. After spending 15 years teaching every standardized test in the known universe, he joined his brother and father in founding Bell Curves.

About #CollegeChat

#CollegeChat is a live bi-monthly conversation intended for teens, college students, parents, and higher education experts on Twitter. #CollegeChat takes place on the first and third Tuesday of the month at 6 p.m. PT/ 9 p.m. ET. Questions for each #CollegeChat edition can be sent to Theresa Smith, the moderator of #CollegeChat via http://Twitter.com/collegechat, by entering questions online on the CollegeChat Facebook page or by email. More detailed information about signing up for Twitter and participating in #Collegechat can be found at http://pathwaypr.com/how-to-participate-in-a-twitter-chat .

How to Build a Powerful LinkedIn Presence

Theresa Smith — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 17:15:30 +0000

16 ways to build a powerful linked in presence from pathwaypr

16 Ways to Build a Powerful Business Presence on LinkedIn

Theresa Smith — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 16:10:12 +0000

Today there are 175 million users on LinkedIn and chances are you may already be a member but are not using it to its full potential. Of the top three social networks –Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn—only LinkedIn concentrates on connecting business professionals. According to LinkedIn, members did nearly 4.2 billion professionally-oriented searches on the platform in 2011 and are on pace to surpass 5.3 billion in 2012; its corporate hiring solutions are used by 82 of the Fortune 100 companies; and more than 2 million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages.

LinkedIn isn’t just a powerful job search tool; it is also a great tool for business development, competitive research and analysis, and networking through its one million groups. Here are 16 tips to use LinkedIn effectively.

Sign up and complete your LinkedIn profile. If you are not yet on LinkedIn, sign up and fill out your profile. Make sure to fill it out completely and also add a picture of yourself. A complete profile makes it easier for potential partners, customers and prospective employers to find you.

Don’t neglect your headshot. Although it may not seem a big deal to you, if your ultimate goal is to use LinkedIn to network a profile with a LinkedIn photo is “seven times more likely to be viewed” according to Nicole Williams, LinkedIn’s Connection Director. Make sure it’s a flattering head shot and only includes you.

Search for and add your business connections. Many people never make it to this step and unfortunately nothing looks worse than a bare profile with few contacts. To speed the process of adding connections, you can select “Add Connections” and LinkedIn can send out invitations to those you correspond with through email or you can enter the email addresses of your contacts.

Decide on your strategy for making new connections. One school of thought is to only connect with people that you actually know while another school of thought is to connect with everyone who asks to connect. My opinion is somewhere in between. I accept invitations to connect only if the person requesting to connect is someone that isn’t just blindly sending me an invite, makes sense for me to connect with and has a legitimate profile. After all, you need to make sure as best you can you are protecting yourself and your contacts from spammers.

Make sure to add some recommendations from others once your profile is complete. The easiest way to get a recommendation is to give a recommendation. Search your contacts for those you want a recommendation from and give them one first. On LinkedIn the recommendations you receive really set you apart from others and make you appear more credible. Make sure you get at least three recommendations. Many jobs advertised on LinkedIn require applicants to have at least three recommendations in order to be reviewed.

List your skills and expertise. This is a fairly new feature from LinkedIn but it makes your profile so much more searchable. Look though your resume and perhaps the skills required for your dream job –that you of course possess—and list them here.

Customize your LinkedIn URL. LinkedIn assigns each profile a URL with a bunch of numbers and texts in it. To get a clean URL you can customize it for your public profile which will help Google bring you up more quickly in a search. Go to “Profile” page and then select “Edit” next to “Public Profile.” Select the URL you want.

Delete an unwanted connection. It happens. Deleting a contact you no longer want is pretty straight forward and best of all they will not be notified. Once you are logged into your profile select “Contacts” and on the far right you have two options: “Add Connections” and “Remove Connections”. Click “Remove Connections” and then check the box of the contact you want to drop, click OK and it is done.

Activate your blog from LinkedIn. If you have a blog and are taking the time to keep it updated make sure to publicize it through LinkedIn. By adding a widget from LinkedIn for your blog –both WordPress and Bloglink are supported– you can automatically display your latest posts. Your business blog is a great way to show your connections and prospects that you are in expert in your field.

Don’t forget to showcase your favorite presentations. In addition to sharing your blog posts, the Slideshare app allows you to add your favorite presentations to LinkedIn. This is another great opportunity to showcase your expertise to the world.

Hide your status updates from prying eyes. If you are looking for a job while still employed, you may not want to let all your connections know each time you make a new contact. You can fly under the radar by clicking “Settings” underneath your name on the right side of the screen. Next select “Turn on/off your activity broadcasts” and uncheck the box and don’t forget to “save changes.” When you’re ready for everyone to see your updates again make sure to reverse the process.

Start sleuthing by making yourself anonymous. If you want to do some serious undercover work on LinkedIn and don’t want the people you are researching to know you have been digging around, you can go into stealth mode by switching your profile to anonymous. Simply go to Settings>Privacy Controls>Select what others can see when you’ve viewed their profile. Now, select one of the following three options: your name and headline; an anonymous profile with some characteristics including industry and title or being totally anonymous. Just remember when you are done “researching” to revert back to your name and profile.

Make use of your personal updates. Have something to share with your connections like news about your company or something you would like to promote to your connections? Add it to the update box along with a link. This is then automatically shared to all your connections. In the event a connections.

Make sure to create a “Business” page. The LinkedIn business page is a good way to publicize your business to your LinkedIn connections.

Join groups on LinkedIn. By joining groups on LinkedIn in your industry you can meet others in your field and potentially add them as contacts as well. Also see if your alumni group is there as well. LinkedIn lets you join up to 50 groups.

Make use of your personal updates. Have something to share with your connections like news about your company or something you would like to promote to your connections? Add it to the update box along with a link. This is then automatically shared to all your connections. In the event a connection comments on your post or likes it, your post is then shared among their connections.

What are your favorite LinkedIn tips?

Noted Social Media Scholar to Discuss How the Frequency of College Students’ Facebook Usage Correlates to Academic Engagement on #CollegeChat June 5th

Theresa Smith — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 15:04:32 +0000

Professor Rey Junco will discuss recent research on college students’ Facebook use #CollegeChat on June 5, 2012 at 9 p.m. Eastern

Dr. Rey Junco, professor at Lock Haven University and a youth and media lab mentor at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, will discuss his latest research on the relationship between Facebook use and college student engagement on #CollegeChat June 5, 2012 at 9 p.m. Eastern.

During #CollegeChat, Junco (http://twitter.com/reyjunco) will discuss research findings from a recent study he authored “The relationship between frequency of Facebook use, participating in Facebook activities, and student engagement” with attendees including:

Is there a relationship between frequency of Facebook use and activities and student engagement?
Is there a relationship between frequency of Facebook use and activities and time spent preparing for class?
Is there a relationship between frequency of Facebook use and activities and time spent in co-curricular activities?
Why are these results important for higher education administrators, faculty and staff important?
Why is it important for higher education to design and support interventions that meet students where they are on Facebook and other social media sites?

Rey Junco is a social media scholar who investigates the impact of social technologies on college students. Rey’s primary research interest is using quantitative methods to analyze the effects of social media on student psychosocial development, engagement, and learning. His research has also focused on informing best practices in using social technologies to enhance learning outcomes. For instance, Rey’s research has shown that technology, specifically social media like Facebook and Twitter, can be used in ways that improve engagement and academic performance. Rey has recently published papers on: the relationship between Facebook use, student engagement, and learning, the academic effects of multitasking, the digital divide in cell phone ownership and use, using social media to promote civil discourse on college campuses, and how Twitter can be used for academic purposes in order to increase student engagement and improve grades.

About #CollegeChat

#CollegeChat Transcript: Social Media and Recruiting of High School Athletes

Theresa Smith — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 22:17:48 +0000

Social media has quickly transformed the world of athletic recruiting in just a short period of time according to Karen Weaver, EdD, director of Athletics for Penn State University-Abington and a TV color analyst for ESPN, CBS College Sports and Big Ten Network. Weaver was a recent guest on #CollegeChat and discussed how social media is benefitting both athletic programs and high school athletes who want to play in college.

During #CollegeChat, Weaver addressed the following questions:

How has social media changed athletic recruiting?

Can college coaches “friend” students on FaceBook? What are the guidelines?

What are the best practices in for both recruiters and prospective athletes to use in technology and social media?

What questions should an athlete ask a coach on a college visit?

Has social media changed high school athlete recruiting for the better?

How has social media helped get student athletes recruited? Is Youtube helping? Twitter feeds of club games?

Do high school students need to go through the expense of belonging to fee based online recruiting sites?

The entire transcript is available for download Social Media & Recruiting Transcript

Social Media’s Role on Recruiting High School Athletes #CollegeChat May 22, 2012

Theresa Smith — Sun, 20 May 2012 21:32:17 +0000

College Athletics Director and TV Sports Analyst to Discuss Growing Role of Social Media on Recruitment of High School Athletes #CollegeChat May 22, 2012

Karen Weaver, EdD, director of Athletics for Penn State University-Abington and a TV color analyst for ESPN, CBS College Sports and Big Ten Network, will discuss the growing role of social media on the recruiting of high school athletes during #CollegeChat on Twitter, May 22, 2012 at 9 p.m. Eastern.

In just the last few years the role of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook have dramatically changed the recruiting of high school athletes according to Weaver. During #Collegechat, Weaver, https://twitter.com/#!/collegeathlete , will discuss:

How has social media changed athletic recruiting?
Has social media changed athlete recruiting for the better?
What are the pitfalls?
What are the best practices in for both recruiters and prospective athletes to use in technology and social media?
Are college coaches and their recruiters being too invasive on high school athletes’ privacy?
Should college coaches be allowed to “friend” students on FaceBook?
Are college coaches being allowed to ask for passwords in order to examine high school athletes’ student accounts?
How has social media helped get student athletes recruited?
Do high school students need to go through the expense of belonging to fee based online recruiting sites?

About Karen Weaver

Karen Weaver is an Ivy League-educated consultant, scholar, speaker, and administrator with experience that includes positions as a director of Athletics, adjunct professor, and head coach for schools at the NCAA Division I, III, and small college levels. Weaver is also a television color analyst for ESPN, CBS College Sports and Big Ten Network. As a former All-American and national championship coach, Weaver is recognized as an expert in broadcast rights and new media, athletic administration, and college recruitment; and also serves as a recruiting educator for student athletes, parents, and coaches. In addition, Weaver is an athletics consultant to senior leaders in higher education.

About #CollegeChat

What’s the Price of Higher Education? An Infographic

Theresa Smith — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:21:04 +0000

Source: H&R Block

I like this infographic a lot but only as a starting point. Note, the colleges noted as the most expensive school are not necessarily so. They are the most expensive in sticker price but a large number of students do not pay the sticker price. That’s where your grades, course load, SAT and ACT scores, financial need, your athletic or musical talents play a huge part in what you will actually pay. Go to the schools and check out their financial aid section to find out how much is actually doled out. Make sure to aim for schools where your GPA, scores, talents will place you in top 25% of admitted students.